


Turn Left

by Mycroftpedia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt, John-centric, Loneliness, M/M, Meant To Be, Platonic Romance, Platonic Soulmates, References to Depression, Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel, What-If, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycroftpedia/pseuds/Mycroftpedia
Summary: inspired by Doctor Who, Turn Left – “If you could go back in time, would you'll make it all differently? Would you'll avoid the road that took you to Sherlock?”John stared at him, trying to study him in the same way he had seen Sherlock doing so many times. He was trying to figure out where Mycroft wanted to go with that question. To an inner reflection? Simple and mere curiosity? Or was there something more? John wondered when it was the last time he had seen him so serious. Mycroft Holmes was perennially serious, but that time there was something different, something that frightened him.“Right now?” He demanded at the end, challenging him, hoping to throw out some other word or some suspicious behavior. Nothing came up. “Yes.”





	Turn Left

Little Rosie begun to cry and Mrs Hudson ran to pick her up in her loving arms to reassure her.

“It's okay, sweetheart. You know these two, there's nothing to worry about.” She whispered gently, alternating sweet touching at some kiss here and there among those golden curls.

A second burst of shouts was just began, at 221b; It had been going on for a couple of hours, interrupted only by a few short breaks hither and thither. Mrs. Hudson had learned to put up with it, though, every time, her heart broke in hearing John and Sherlock screaming at each others in that way, for a futile or a more serious motive. They were like her own sons, she knew that the storms between them never lasted for too long, but she couldn't remain completely impassive. Sooner or later, those two fools would have let her die of a heart attack, she knew it.

John had left Rosie at her, that morning, before leaving the apartment looking for Sherlock. She didn't know all the details, she only saw John coming back home a few hours later, his phone at his ear. Sherlock was back about an hour after him, instead, bruised and limping. The good landlady ran, worried, but John came from behind her, rushed from the stairs, ready to shout against the consulting detective. They both went upstairs and then they never left it. She had, unwittingly, heard Dr. Watson rebuke his partner that he had thrown into that new case by himself, having left him out and almost being killed for that. Sherlock, for his part, was defended himself by explaining how he had been all under control all the time and that if there weren't complications, he would come home in time for the tea. This had certainly not calmed John, which had even begun to raise his voice even further.

Probably the entire neighbourhood was listening.

“For the last time, Sherlock. I don't need your protection. Not if you have to get yourself killed!” John's voice broke from the stairs, Mrs. Hudson could safely see him wearing his coat – always, in her opinion, too light for the temperatures of those days, to get ready to go out for a long and intense walk, where he would cool off great part of the anger.

Rosie, meanwhile, had calmed down and now she was listening and waiting.

“Oh, for God's sake, I had everything under control!” Sherlock repeated before he left; John decided to ignore him, shaking his head, and beginning to get down the stairs. “Where are you going?” Sherlock's head appeared up the stairs.

“I'm going out.”

“Yes, I see this.” Said the detective, wounded, hesitating to see John go out without him, when he was still angry; he always was afraid he wouldn't come back. “Pass from Mycroft's, first, for inform him that I have... that the case is solved!” He screamed before John was out of his visual field. He curses himself, a second later, for had formulating that phrase as an order and not as a request. 

John stopped on the spot, breathed deeply, clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and let the breath out. He repeated that operation three times without replying. Sherlock dared not move, impatient; He decided to try to remedy at what he had just said. “John–” 

“All right!” The doctor shouted, upset, before going out, slamming the door violently behind him.

*  


First, John went to Angelo's so he would eat something, which he didn't from the evening before. It was a bad idea, he noted soon, as the restaurateur spent the whole time of his meal filling him with questions, more or less personal. The first thought of the man went to Rosie, he didn't see her for a while, he said, she had to be grown up at least ten inches from the last time! Then, he asked why he didn't come with Sherlock, if things went going well with each other, correcting himself soon, with a “of course it's all right between the two of you!” He didn't notice the exhausted and annoyed expression of the doctor, so he continued to stumble over questions about Sherlock, the last person John who wanted to talk about at the moment.

He, then, went to the park, looking for a way to fill the time, but it didn't last too long: the happiness and the carefree of the people around him began to get on his nerves. He met Sarah, Christ!, he didn't even remember when it was the last time he had seen her. She had officially been engaged and had recently discovered she was expecting a baby. The marriage would be celebrated in one month to avoid the belly. Of course he and Sherlock were invited. And Rosie, too. The Watson-Holmes family in full, she pointed out without letting him be able to replicate, accept or decline that invitation.

He came to the Diogenes Club in the late afternoon. He imagined that Mycroft was waiting for him for a while, so he hurried to reach him without making the slightest breath – he had learned the lesson, the first time. He closed the door behind him and went to sit in front of the oldest Holmes, without even worried about to say hello, better they would finish the meeting quickly. Or maybe not, he wasn't looking forward to return to Baker Street, he hadn't went over over the discussion with Sherlock.

“Trouble in paradise?” Mycroft punched him, folding the newspaper he was reading and folding it carefully before laying it over the table. 

John made a frozen smile, a little dark in fact, and forced himself to not going against one of the most Britain's powerful men, to doing that for his friend Greg. No, not for Sherlock, for Greg. Mycroft received the message, commenting it with a raised eyebrow, and finally he decided to talk about the case he had given to Sherlock a few days earlier.

“I can't give you too many details, Mycroft,” John blurted at a certain point. The doctor was nervous, the whole tension of the day was re-emerging, “I'm practically in the dark of the most. Sherlock just wanted to let you know that jewels are safe and the case can be filed, if knowing how it came to end it's such of vital importance then, you have to see him. . Not me. At this point, I don't want to know anything anymore.” He concluded nervously, crossing his hand in his hair. He had to calm down, he said to himself.

Mycroft studied him silently for a few seconds, John took advantage of it to pass a hand over his eyes and emit a deep breath. Eventually he decided to replicate. “My brother proved to be reckless enough to bring a child on various crime's scenes, but he also has a sense of limit, and I'm sure he have considered the situation too dangerous, so he decided to deal with it alone only to keep you safe–”

“I don't – oh for the God's sake!” John got to his feet, tired of the discussion that didn't want to come to an end. What Mycroft – and Sherlock about a million times before of him, had told to him, were all things he already knew, and that was exactly what drive him mad. He hated that day, as he hated so many other identical days before: waking up and not finding Sherlock; starting to texting him; trying to call him and praying for his answer; not knowing if he was okay, whether he was safe, what he was doing or where he was. He couldn't live in this way, with the constant fear of losing the man he loved without doing anything to avoid it. He hated feeling so helpless and Sherlock didn't seem to realize it. That day he'd came home wounded, and if he hadn't come back? He couldn't bear it. “Sometimes I think I would have been better, if I didn't move to Baker Street.” He said that loudly, without realizing it. He breathed heavily and turned back, determined to leave.

“Are you so sure?” The other man's voice came to him and locked him right in front of the door, his hand on the handle. He just turned his head, noticing how Mycroft was staring at an indefinite point near him, absently.

John whispered a “ _How_?”, not understanding the thread of speech, only then the man looked back at him. “If you could go back in time, would you'll make it all differently? Would you'll avoid the road that took you to Sherlock?”

John stared at him, trying to study him in the same way he had seen Sherlock doing so many times. He was trying to figure out where Mycroft wanted to go with that question. To an inner reflection? Simple and mere curiosity? Or was there something more? John wondered when it was the last time he had seen him so serious. Mycroft Holmes was perennially serious, but that time there was something different, something that frightened him. 

“Right now?” He demanded at the end, challenging him, hoping to throw out some other word or some suspicious behavior. Nothing came up. “Yes,” he answered in the end, not knowing why he was still there. “But that's impossible, right?” He found himself asking, just to be sure. Only God could knows what kind of things the British government was working in secret.

“That's impossible, certainly.” Mycroft repeated quietly, returning to the newspaper he was reading before John came. The doctor felt the muscles relax. He opened the door, but was stopped again. “Turn right, this time.” John decided to not worry to that statement and to not ask too many questions, to get out of there quickly, before he'll became mad. Silent, he crossed the rooms of the Diogenes Club, opened the front door, and went out.

*  


How and why he was sitting on his desk, he just couldn't remember it. He'd came back to staring at his laptop's screen, his blog's page was open, no words written in it, yet. But what was he supposed to write about, anyway? That page, he thought, was perfect with his life: it was completely empty, nothing remarkable or important, nothing that deserved to went on record and be shared with other people. Everything sucked.

He looked at his watch, then glanced out the window so that he could see the unexpected sun that stood on the English sky at the end of January. Ella had suggested him to write a few words, he could almost hear her voice, another reproach. He decided to ignore it, he would write later; the fresh air would be good for him, wouldn't it? Maybe he would've witnessed an exceptional episode, maybe his life would be better in that day, maybe everything would've change. Sure, John, and maybe they will find a way to go back in time, right?

He took his things and, clinging to his trusted and hated stick, abandoned those four walls that marked his own prison. He immediately bought a newspaper and went to sit on the first bench he found, the children in front of him started playing with a skateboard. He began to take a look at the various ads, first of all the apartments, hoping to find one that didn't cost too much. He marked some price, knowing that he wouldn't even see one of them. He looked for a job, nothing that required "medical" and "soldier" among the experiences. Maybe he had to try in some private's studio, but with that leg everyone would had look at him as a patient and not as a doctor.

Soon, he decided, after knocking off the newspaper in the nearest garbage can, to go in a bar to pick up a coffee, black and no sugar, as he liked. He declined, in the most politely way, the invitation of the family in front of him to take they're place in the row, all because of that damn stick. Things didn't improve, a girl - pretty nice honestly, seeing him go out to the exit, cup of coffee in one hand and stick in the other, approached him and gently opened the door to let him go. John smiled bitterly, and passed her without looking into her eyes. He wondered if the therapy may would've helped him to go out of that situation, if he would walk normally again. But nothing that was suggested by Ella had worked, and he was really beginning to lose hope. He finished the coffee and threw the cup.

And now, what to do? He didn't even remember the reason why he came out of his house, to say it all. Was he really looking for adventure? Had he really think that he could find it, that it would fall over him suddenly? He felt like an idiot, and maybe he really was.

He walked to home, looking down. When he arrived at the usual crossroads, he stopped: turning right seemed to go back to his small and oppressive room, counting the flow of minutes and feeling choked; To the left was the park. John turned his head to look at it from afar, a shiver crossed him. He was terrified, but at the same time he felt intrigued, attracted. There was something that attracts him from that part, something telling him he'd must go there, that everything would change, there. It was as if it were tied to an invisible wire and suddenly someone from the other side had decided to draw it to him. 

_Turn left_. Was his heart to talk? He believed it, and for a single instant he considered the idea of following that strange instinct, a small short smile was painted on his face, perhaps not even noticeable. He felt happy with that idea, inexplicably happy. 

_Turn right_ , another voice said, a voice that he didn't recognize, went to destroy that kind of dream. 

And John obeyed.

*  


“You didn't write anything on the blog in these days.” Ella was infinitely repetitive at times. John struggled to listen her that day, his mind was far away. If someone asked him what he was thinking, he wouldn't even be able to answer, he only knew that something bad had happened, he had a terrible feeling and he felt guilty for some reason. Why, though, he didn't know.

Surely not for not having written on the blog for two whole days, that really didn't matter to him.

“I didn't have anything to write.” He replied, quitting to look the raindrops that slowly slipped along the window glass. 

Their sessions were always the same, he thought it was time to break them but he didn't find the courage, yet; a part of him still waited for something that would be helped him improve, the other part reproached him for letting that opportunity escaped when he had the chance. John couldn't understand. Or maybe he could, but he didn't realize it.

“It doesn't have to happen something to you, John” The woman continued, in a voice that was too calm for his tastes. His head burst, he only wanted to go back to bed, swallow a sleeping pills, and hope that nightmares would leave him alone for once. “You can write anything, you can write your thoughts,” he lifted his eyes to the sky and snorted, no one cared about what he thought, and at the moment his head was a real battlefield, he himself struggled to get out. “You can talk about your feelings, you can let it out. Even if you're angry, you can–”

“I'm not angry,” he interrupted, rubbing his left eye with his hand, “I don't feel anything, anything at all. Neither joy nor sadness, nor fear. And definitely not anger,” he had thought he was, sometimes he had hoped for. He would have preferred to be constantly angry, everything would have been better than that void he felt on his heart. Maybe he was depressed and he didn't realize it.

Ella started to talk, but he stopped listening to her, the rain had returned to interest him more than that sitting. He then looked down and noticed the newspaper just bought, rolled up and abandoned on the table beside him. In that small moment, he could only notice a word, a name: Holmes. The heart began to accelerate with impatience, unable to control it in any way. He raised a hand, surprised by himself to see the tremble, grabbed the piece of paper and began to read. Perhaps the woman sitting in front of him called his name a couple of times, surprised by that lack of respect, but John ignored her. With his heart in his throat, he began to read those few lines that had hit him so much: _**Continue the mysterious series of suicides in the heart of London**_ _; Victim, this time, is Sherlock Holmes, a consulting detective known at Scotland Yard. Holmes, who had just started working on the case, was found dead on the evening of January 30, 2010. The police believe it was suicide. Keep it up-._

He felt faint, the room turned unexpectedly. He took his face in his hands and began to breathe deeply, to calm down. He didn't know what was happening to him, but that news had upset him, he felt as though the world had fallen on him. He didn't know that man, he didn't even know how he was, and yet his death had been able to bring something inside him, in the depths of his heart, something he hadn't experienced for a long time. Was it... pain? He didn't know, he didn't believe it. He would, willingly, wept, though. He wanted to hunt it out, maybe scream. He looked up and read the article that saying that the funeral would be celebrated in the afternoon. John checked his watch, probably was already begun.

“I'm sorry, I just remembered an... appointment. I'll see you next Tuesday,” he whispered that apology and ran away, as long as the leg allowed it, of course.

The taxi took him to the cemetery in ten minutes, John hated himself for not being there earlier. They had just laid the tomb; A woman weeping in her husband's arms (his parents, he presupposed), another, alone, followed her example sobbing silently, a girl with a high pony tail seemed pretty upset, for the rest, they all seemed out of place. A bit like him. 

A man ran hastily, didn't notice his presence and bumped his arm, abruptly. He turned, mortified, and John seemed to have seen him somewhere.

“I'm so sorry! I didn't see you, truly. I was in a hurry, you know, I did everything to not miss the beginning of the ceremony but I... I'm really sorry!” He began to explain, uttering honestly excuses that, John had the suspect, he had told himself in his mind along the way. 

The ex-soldier just nodded his head, murmuring some sound, nothing that could only be approached with true words to be honest, in a slight attempt to reassure him. He watched him attentively, however, trying to focus him; In the end he remembered: he had seeing his picture on the newspaper a few days ago. He was the Detective Inspector Lestrade: he was on the case of those absurd serial suicides. 

“Were you one of his clients, too?” He asked at a certain point in a low voice.

John shook his head, murmuring a faint “No, no,” looking around in the meantime, wondering if most of the attendants at the funeral were clients of Mr. Holmes, the people he helped over the years.

“Oh, you're a relative, so,” the Inspector concluded, John shaking his head. Lestrade seemed rather surprised and confused, “Was he a friend of yours?” He asked, this time visibly curious about the answer.

“No, I...” he began to say, suddenly realizing that his presence there was completely unmotivated. He had never even heard the name of Sherlock Holmes before that day. “It's complicated,” he finally murmured, half truth. “I didn't know him very much, what kind of man was he?” He found himself asking, moved by a strange curiosity.

Lestrade scratched his head. “I can't say. He helped - well, helped me to solve the most difficult cases. He was quite weird, he had no friends, he was alone. He was interested only on his work; Those you see here are all his ex clients. I know some of them, so many hate me because I thought they were guilty.” 

John looked around, felt a kind of anger toward them, he found it unacceptable that they had the chance to know and interact with that man and he doesn't. He felt that things shouldn't go on that way and he was surprised by himself for those thoughts. 

“He also had a blog, the science of deduction.” 

For a moment he thought he was kidding, but the inspector looked more than serious and he calmed down. That Holmes also had a blog, strange cases of life. He noted that name in mind, determined to go find it once at home.

He didn't ask anything else, and Lestrade didn't add so much more. At the end, the two men greeted each other cordially; John stayed aside to watch people move away from the tomb of Sherlock Holmes. Before he left, he saw a black car in the trees, and a man standing there with a black umbrella in his hand, open to protect himself from the rain that didn't even want to stop for a second, which he had observed that scene for all the time from afar.

*  


Shortly __, Sherlock Holmes became his obsession.

He spent all the time on his blog, studied every post, finding him crazy, absurd, and genial at the same time. He contacted some of his old clients, they told him stories, how Sherlock had helped them. He was tempted several times to look for his parents, but he never dared to go beyond that limit. He didn't know what was that push him in those searches, something in his heart told him he had to do it, which was his destiny. 

He found, on an old newspaper, his photograph; John thought he seemed younger than his age; He cropped that picture and now he kept it in the wallet, half empty as always, without an apparent motive. Somehow he felt comforted in keeping him close. It was such an absurd feeling.

He felt that he had several points in common with that man, he never stopped looking for new information about him almost to be sure about it. All the people who he listened, had been, more or less, useful in this: they had defined him confident, no one knew anything about his private life and many thought that he almost had no one; no girlfriend, or boyfriend; no friend or confidant. He was practically alone in the world, like him. 

One of the women he had seen at the funeral, Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, told him he had never taken too much care of him, sleeping not at all, skipping, often, his lunch or dinner or both, playing his violin most of the time - she thought he did it to fill and cover the sound of his solitude. 

Some called him arrogant, someone pushed a bit beyond defining his as “a real asshole.” 

John, by the way, had begun to imagine, more and more often, how their life would be; perhaps, he thought, between one case and another, he would teach him how to play the violin.

He, also, had heard other voices, which were not very friendly. There was someone who said he was addict to drugs, or he had a past like that. He never worried to research into that past, perhaps he preferred not to think where, his solitude, had brought him, how badly was to have taken him and how nobody had ever known.

His only certainty was that more things he discovered, more John was fascinated by that man. But it wasn't just this. He felt really connected to Sherlock Holmes, he could sense the bond that joined them. A bond he had never heard with anyone else.

He wanted to be close to him, he wanted to stop him, prevent him from ending his life. He wanted to be there to help him. He threw the glass of water he was drinking against the wall, at that thought. Things shouldn't supposed to go, definitely, in that way.

*  


He never spoken of Sherlock Holmes with Ella, he was sure she wouldn't understand, and certainly never approve. In fact, he hadn't spoken to any of his relatives, even he died of the desire to let them know how brilliant and ingenious that detective, that man, was. He wanted to make him known to the whole world, and at the same time he wanted to keep him, perhaps egotistically, exclusively for himself, so that he could feel his, only his.

Sherlock Holmes become a constant in his life, the constant he had missed for too long. He didn't know whether if it was good or bad, but so many times he closed by himself not caring what was happening out. Life was going on, he was inside, but he didn't care much about what was happening. 

He found a job and then he tried to hang out with a colleague, Sarah. Things seemed, for a while, to be fine, until the woman herself noticed that he constantly had his head to another side. “There is already another person in your thoughts,” she had said, “I've been aware of it for some time, but I thought it would be over.” She left him, and he given up the job. He didn't care about both of things.

He didn't look for a job for a while, so he was surprised to receive the call from a well-known London hospital, the St. Barts. He had been widely recommended by someone important, someone who wanted to remain anonymous; John tried all sorts of explanations, but he couldn't even find half. He started working the next morning, forced to abandon any further research he had in mind about Sherlock Holmes.

*  


The chaos reigned in the hospital. London was in chaos, to say it all, the whole nation, perhaps, the whole Europe. But not like the hospital. 

John was standing for 24 hours, as well as more or less all the other doctors who hadn't stopped for a moment and had ran from one patient to another. He seemed to have returned to Afghanistan, for a long time he didn't feel so busy and high.

In fact, the situation was critical and there was nothing to feel well about it: the night before, London was hit by a terrorist attack on the British parliament.

They had stopped counting the wounded, had improvised loungers and had sent home all the family to free the waiting room. 

John felt so many different emotions that he convinced himself he could explode from moment or another: excitement, mourning, anger, anxiety, worry and an incredible blame. The latter one was what frightened him most. Each death drop him in an abyss, he felt responsable for all those victims, it seemed to him that everything had happened for his own fault. He expressed this thought to a colleague but he called him “ridiculous”. And he was right, what had to do, John Watson, an insignificant hospital doctor, in a terrorist attack? How could he have predicted or avoided it? He couldn't, and yet there was that voice that kept telling him that it was all his fault, that if it hadn't been for him, things wouldn't have gone that way.

“John?” A nurse called him. “There's a man here, he wants to talk to you,” he glanced at her, looking around. Did he seem to have time to talk to someone? He didn't have time to lose with some relative of some wounded. “No, he can't wait. It's on the roof, Mr. Holmes, if I understood right.”

His heart missed a beat. If she understood? How could she haven't understood such an important detail? Holmes? No, it was impossible, it couldn't be true. He was dead, he had even been to his funeral, had witnessed his burial. He may faked everything for some reason? And why did he ask for him? Did he find out he had gone around hanging on his count? Maybe he had come to tell him to stop it and make an own life. No, he couldn't be him.

He hurried down the stairs, leaving his stick behind his shoulders, without even realizing it. He was trembling, he noticed, his beat accelerated. He was excited, very, didn't even try to breathe normally to get calm, he couldn't even do it. 

He was excited and, above all, agitated. He would have dared to say scared. He was about to meet the man who had been in the middle of his thoughts for months, the detective who had replaced his nightmares of war with pleasurable dreams based on images of that life together that they had never lived. 

John wanted to know so many things as he ran through the stairs, jumping a step and the other, trying to arrange a talk, or put all the questions that he wanted to ask him in order.

Why he faked his death, to begin with. Why he showed up at that time. And he, what would he answer him? He was terrified of being sent to fuck himself. And in addition he was really scared of what would be his first real impression of Sherlock Holmes. And above all the idea that Holmes would have done of him.

“Dr. Watson.” He heard the voice came from a figure hiding in the shadows. Was it really his figure? The figure of Sherlock Holmes? And his voice... no, there was something wrong with that voice, everything was wrong at that moment. He seemed to have heard a stranger, pronouncing his name, that sound hadn't given him the slightest effect or the slightest emotion. He was... disappointed, yes. And confused, very much. 

The figure came out in the light, revealing a man he had never seen before, a man who, of course, was not his Holmes. John felt relieved but at the same time afflicted with that revelation.

“Do I know you?” He found himself ask that question, as he approached him slowly, then stared ahead, spinning the black umbrella behind. He had already seen him before, he was certain.

“Mycroft Holmes,” the man came forward, studying the doctor's expression: John did everything to look totally indifferent, failing and shuddering only at hear the sound of that name. Mycroft raised his eyebrows, satisfied. “You don't know me, Dr. Watson. Not at this time, at least,” John looked at him, questioning him, not being able to understand a word of what he was saying. “I kept an eye on you, I mean your movements, and I couldn't not see your obsession with my brother.”

The brother, that man was his brother. He should have know it, he thought, it was obvious that he couldn't have be Sherlock Holmes in person, he had been dead for years, he was really stupid to believe the opposite, though only for a moment. 

He tried to study Mycroft, the way he spoke or the one he was moving, the expressions he was doing and how he was addressing to him; He wondered if even a small part of those gestures belonged to Sherlock, if something of him still lived in his brother. He then focused on what he told him, swallowing saliva, waiting, but Mycroft seemed to have said everything already.

“Look, we're in an emergency,” he said, so to begin with, “can you get right to the point and not lose any other precious time?” He went on the defensive without wanting it, he repented immediately afterwards.

Mycroft didn't even care to hide a grin. “That's okay, Dr. Watson, I will not let you waste any more time. How would you react if I told you that we are in a parallel reality and nothing of everything that has happened, especially to you, in recent years, shouldn't have happened?”

“I should say that, contrary to your good intentions, I'm losing time with these stupid things,” the doctor replied immediately, finding courage and authority; He didn't like jokes, he always hated them, and he didn't care who that man was, he was ready to cut off any absurdity he wanted to tell him. There was, however, one thing in what he said that made him shudder: everything shouldn't have happened. It was one of the things that went on his mind repeatedly, especially when he thought of Sherlock Holmes. He had that constant feeling that all the last years should have to go differently.

“Predictable.” He commented, which seemed not to be hurt by his words or tone, but rather bored. “I would have been really happy to save time for that, because you know that my words are not came from a crazy man or an impostor. Besides, what reason do I have to come up to you, now, just to tell you lies?” He had no reason to doing that, John knew, and that truth bothered him. In his heart he was experiencing a profound conflict: he didn't know if he would have preferred it to be true or if he was only making a stupid joke. He didn't know which of the two alternatives was the simplest. He was silent, but shaking his head for what he was hearing. “Let's go, look at me. Do you think I am lying?”

“I know you,” he said instead, ignoring the question and finally surprising the man, “I saw you,” he corrected a second later, looking into his eyes. “You was at his funeral,” there was no need to specify what he was referring to.

Mycroft swallowed up, “I guess so,” he said in a low voice, struck.

“You guess?” John echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“Dr. Watson,” the other started, talking calmly and slowly, treating him as stupid. “What you saw was not me. He was Mycroft Holmes of this time.” John laughed, a low laugh that sounded like a puff, turning his head to the other side. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, he just couldn't, he thought it was science-fiction. “On January 29, 2010, backing home, you found yourself in front of a crossroad, didn't you? And you chose to go right,” he didn't care to even formulate the last part as a question.

“And I should remember one thing that happened three years ago?” He exclaimed, agitated and alarmed. He actually remembered that day well, if he could close his eyes, he could even feel the same sensations of the day and the date... yes, he remembers that date very well: he learned of Sherlock Holmes's suicide a couple of days later.

“Dr. Watson, it would be simpler if we were able to be completely honest among us, at least at this time,” Mycroft snorted, making him feel bare naked; He felt that he couldn't hide anything from that man, he imagined that Sherlock was the same or would never have been such a brilliant detective. Maybe it was to be a family dowry. He was silent, hating himself for that. Mycroft took advantage of it. “In this regard, I have to confess to being the creator of this... unpleasant situation,” John raised an eyebrow and turned his gaze at him, he hadn't decided yet what to believe, but he certainly was fighting the desire of punching him in his face. “I must have taken advantage of a conflict between the two of you, so that you can experience a machine currently in the hands of the government, so that you can go back in time - by the way, I must thank you for your contribution; it was very crucial. Turning to the right, however, you changed the fate and created this kind of parallel universe. All these years are wrong, they are nothing but a mistake.”

John remained silent for a moment, enough time to metabolize everything. “A time machine? What is it, alien technology?” He found himself asking, feeling yes, stupid but preferring to dwell on the last important thing at that time. One way to gain time.

“Alien technology?” The other repeated amusement. “This is science, Dr. Watson.” John nodded, crossing his arms. He couldn't really believe such a thing, time's travels, parallel universes, were just bullshit. But on the other side, there were all the sensations he felt every time he was thinking about Holmes, the bond he felt, as something that was supposed to be. He had never spoken to anyone of this because he knew no one would understand, he himself didn't understand so much. 

Mycroft, on the other hand, seemed the only able, not only to understand, but also to give him an explanation. That day he should have turned left, and then what? Would he come across Sherlock Holmes? Would they become friends, maybe something more? Was this his destiny? His and Sherlock Holmes's road should have been crossed? “The point is,” Mycroft, once again, broke the silence, saving him from that whirlwind of thoughts he had gone into, “that my brother wouldn't have to die that night.” John raised his head and looked at him seriously, the man seemed sincerely destroyed by that thought as long as he tried not to make it known.

“This is something that I have often repeated myself in these years,” John commented, not knowing what else to add. He would have liked the details, maybe he would be convinced, but the other didn't seem willing to give it to him.

“I must admit that I didn't know what to expect from you, from your life without him,” he murmured suddenly, the corners of his mouth curved upward in a compassionate, moved, dramatic smile. “It surprises me how, in one way or another, he has managed to influence you completely. Even now, without ever having encountered him, everything turns around Sherlock Holmes. I don't know whether to be touched, or surprised.”

“You can tell me,” he replied, half-mouth. He felt touched on the staff now; He was restless, didn't know what to think or act. He wasn't in his favorite position.

“I can tell you that I have seen you enter in this hospital with your stick, and now I see you here, in front of me, standing on your legs as if nothing was. It was enough heard his name to let you run here and leave everything behind you, didn't you?” But John had stopped listening to him a few seconds earlier, roughly when he named his stick. Instinctively he looked down at his right and what he hadn't found left him breathless. When did it happen? How? Could it really have been the belief that Sherlock Holmes was trying to contact him to forget about everything else? “Oh,” murmured Mycroft, in a low voice, “you hadn't noticed it, yet. Like the other time, by the way.” The other time. 

“I still don't understand the reason of yor visit,” he said, ignoring all the rest, all the insinuations, all the questions left suspended. He felt the need to close that conversation quickly.

“John,” the man shuddered, that was the first time he had called him by name since that absurd interview had begun, “I have to ask you: what would you do to get Sherlock back?” Get him back, why that sounded so crazy but also so right at the same time? He never met Sherlock Holmes' eyes, nor he ever heard his voice or learned to recognize the sound of his footsteps, but there was something in his heart telling him he had done each of these things, or more, in a past life, or in so many others.

“I'd give my life for him,” the conviction that he put into it left him completely unprepared; The same thing, however, couldn't be said by Mycroft Holmes, who had just the decency to lower his gaze so much that would allow him to hide his little grin of satisfaction. He seemed to have gotten what he had come for, it was a pity that John didn't seem to have given him anything. “Listen,” he finally began, tired, “assuming that your whole story is true and that I believe it, what is happening now? Do you have to press some kind of reset button to make it all back to normal? Or I... will I go back with you? Is that why you are here?”

Mycroft raised both eyebrows, indignant for those absurdities. “There is no reset button, it doesn't work in this way - not yet, at least. And no, you can't come back with me, this universe has been created by you, you can't get out of it like this,” John's head beginning to turn, he lost the thread of speech.

“So I have to stay here? Is not there anything I can do?”

“At the time, you'll know it,” he answered, another vague answer, another meaning to read between the lines. John didn't like these games, those riddles. Mycroft, however, seemed to have said everything, so he turned his back and made it to leave, letting him go back to his job.

“You did it to give me a lesson, didn't you?” That was enough to stop him.

“What?”

“The discussion with Sherlock. You didn't send me back for testing a stupid machine: you suggested me to start again, to try to live without him. I know myself, I know that in a discussion I could come to say heavy things, things that I didn't think and which I could regret afterwards, or maybe not. All this was done to prove to myself how wrong I was, am I right?”

Mycroft looked at him silently, studying the possibility of answering him or not. John didn't wink, giving him a serious look, firm, self-confident, and ready for anything. A soldier's look, he would've said. In the end, Holmes added nothing but “I hope to see you soon, John.” A moment later, he was gone.

He found himself alone, alone as he had been for most of his life, alone as he had been back from Afghanistan. He had to return from his patients, he'd disappeared, for how long, an hour? It seemed to him a year and at the same time a few seconds. His legs surrendered in the end; He dropped to the ground and put his head on the wall. What was he supposed to believe? He was a man of science, he always been, and all those stories about travel over time had always been to him, in fact, stories, nothing but utopias. He was deeply doubtful that science would ever reach that level. But he was also a romantic, though that term might seem silly in the ears of people, even of his own, he knew he was or he wouldn't have spent the last three years of his life behind a dead man, which he had never met. Everything for what? For a kind of connection he felt to have with him, nothing else.

He moved to his right flank, to recover his wallet from his left pocket. He pulled out the picture of Sherlock taken from a dated newspaper. Every time he watched him, he seemed to discover new details and he gave them a different story. Maybe he was really crazy. Sherlock watched him, from the photo, with those deep blue eyes that seemed to him as he was studying him. John looked him back with a sigh of relief. He warmed his heart, and he didn't talk about the picture. It was enough the man's thought to help him feel less alone and miserable, which he, in the end, was.

He looked up to the dark sky, in Sherlock he had found a sort of anchor, a reason to move forward. If he didn't read that newspaper, that famous morning, if he hadn't discovered his existence, if he never heard his name, what would he have been of him? He had no difficulty remembering the void that the return from the war had caused him, perhaps because he had never stopped feeling it. He didn't have to deny it, had heard his name that night, the woman told him that he was looking for him and he felt alive for the first time after so long. 

What was he? He was near at the 40s and he had no plans, no affection, no friends. He hadn't heard his sister for months and almost didn't miss her. He didn't speak to anyone, indeed, he had no one to talk to or to go out to drink a beer. He had even stopped going to Ella's and had failed to get in touch with any of his colleagues. He had got a job he had never even asked - he began to believe that Mycroft Holmes was the responsible, somehow. He didn't go out with a woman for a long time, he didn't even remember when it was the last time he had kissed someone. And he didn't even feel the need to do it, not with anyone, at least. He didn't want to know people, he knew no one would ever be up to compete with Sherlock Holmes, or at least with his fantasy of him.

“At the time, you'll know it,” the echo of Mycroft's voice echoed him in the brain several times. John wasn't happy about his life, but at least he had found some kind of stability, even if he was ephemeral. And then that man had come, had summoned various doubts and questions in his head, and then he was gone. It was all so absurd. In fact, no, it wasn't at all. Did he believe what he had heard? No. Yes. Probable? He couldn't decide, he knew he was living an inner battle. What was he supposed to do? Perhaps he knew it, paradoxically, the idea didn't terrorize him either.

“I'd give my life for him,” he had said and he didn't deny it. He would really do it. And he began to believe that it was his destiny, at least in that life. Mycroft had told him that he was the creator of the existence of that universe, which he had created when he had chosen the wrong path, rewriting, in such a way, a sad, empty and new story. He didn't see any other solutions, there wasn't another way to erase it, not from his point of view. If all those things he had heard were true, Sherlock had died because of him and he would never forgive himself for that. He would continue to live with that remorse. No, he didn't have even the slightest intention. He didn't want to live, no more than thirty or forty years without him.

He thought at the gun jealously kepted in the drawer of his desk. It had always been there, it never abandoned him. That gun had even attempt him that distant January 29th, he would never forget it. Going home at that moment and ending his life seemed so simple. But on the other hand he couldn't leave that place, he couldn't move, but not for cowardice. He felt like he had to do it, that he had to do it there and nowhere else. He put a hand on the edge behind him and, his legs were shaking, stood up and turned to the road.

Was he really doing this? For what? Mycroft could be a fool, or a person who just wanted to play a bad shot. And would he end his life for that? But what life? It had come to that conclusion now, that which he was living couldn't have been considered in that way. Did he trust Mycroft Holmes? No, but he trusted Sherlock. He believed in Sherlock Holmes.

He looked at his photo one last time, smiled bitterly and carefully put it in the top pocket of his shirt, the one at the height of his heart. He breathed deeply, then, and for a long time. He closed his eyes and, then, dropped.

*  


He was forced to sit at the door of the building from which he had just left. He was out of breath and he couldn't stop trembling. He was welcomed by the heat of the unusual sun set high in the sky of London, blinking his eyelashes several times and tried to breathe normally. Around him, parents wandered with their children, students returned home, lovers exchanged fleeting caresses. Nobody seemed to notice him. He looked back and recognized the Diogenes Club. What had happened exactly? He had just closed the door behind him, he remembered. And he remembered more... he remembered... everything. How was it possible? Was it a dream or a hallucination? Or was it all really happened?

He could go back to Mycroft and question him, but he had other thoughts on his head, something more important. Someone more important. He stopped the first taxi he found, pointing hastily to Baker Street, cursing the cabbie for the absurd amount of time he was using to get there.

As soon as he saw the 221 b, he gave the driver all the money he had in his pocket and ran out, without even closing his car door. He threw out the keys and was forced to try a couple of times before he could open the door. He ran along the stairs and opened the door of the apartment with force and violence; That went to slam against the wall. Sherlock turned immediately, standing in front of the desk, playing the violin for Rosie, who was playing with cubes. She turned to look at him too, curious. Sherlock started to open his mouth, but John didn't let him do it, crashing on him, putting his hand behind his neck and letting him lower, so that he could put his lips on his and satisfy his taste.

“John, I-” he tried to say, interrupting the kiss shortly afterward, for lack of breath.

“I'm sorry,” the doctor exclaimed, putting his forehead on the other, “I'm sorry,” he repeated, “I exaggerated. I really exaggerated. I'm so sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry about keeping you out. I shouldn't have gone without you, I understand that,” John nodded at him.

“No, you shouldn't have,” he murmured to his lips. He just stroked them with his tongue, quick.

“But I would do it again,” Sherlock added without thinking, cursing himself at once. The other didn't seem to matter, he didn't interrupt that moment, he would never have succeeded.

“Obviously, you would do it again,” he echoed, rather, smiling amused, leaving even half a laugh. Sherlock reclined his faces to look at John, upset. He couldn't understand why he was laugh, especially he couldn't understand why that thing didn't made him anger. The truth was that John couldn't get angry at him for quite a while, not after what he had just lived. He was simply grateful to have returned and found him again. He took his hips to take him close. Sherlock hugged him back, and then John turned his head slightly to kiss his neck. “I missed you,” he whispered on his skin, making him shudder. He then broke the hug, and ran to pick up his little girl in his arms, stamping a sweet kiss on her forehead as well, lifting her up above her head to make her laugh. “I missed you both.”

“You've only been away for three hours,” Sherlock said, placing the violin on his armchair before heading to the kitchen so that he could prepare tea for both of them.

“It seemed to me a lot more, at least three years,” he exclaimed while sitting in front of the fireplace.

“You're so sentimental,” Sherlock shouted at him, making him laugh.

Actually it was, but that was exactly the point, right? If he wasn't, perhaps he would never come home. He reminded him of the reason why everything had begun. Maybe he had to deal with Mycroft for the ugly joke he had done, but he was too busy at cursing himself for what he had said. His life wouldn't been easier, without Sherlock, he wouldn't been anything without Sherlock. He wouldn't been happier, he wouldn't been more relaxed, he wouldn't been more carefree. It would been empty, incredibly empty. And lost. And alone. And on the brink of a continuous crisis. He would never said anything like that anymore, Sherlock didn't deserve it, their life together didn't deserve it. He hoped to be able to forgive himself sooner or later.

Sherlock returned with two cups, handed one to John and then sat down in front of him.

“Will you ever tell me where you were this morning, anyway? How did you solve the case?” He asked at a certain point, curious and eager to know every detail, so that he could update his blog. Sherlock made a grimace, emphasizing it with a gesture of his hand.

“It doesn't matter,” he replied, before approaching the cup to his lips “It belongs to the past, by now. Another life, another era.”

John coughed on the tea and looked down at him. Mycroft had give the case to him, John knew little about it, only the most important or juicy details. That even Sherlock, that day, had faced a daunting journey through time? So he had kept him in the dark, cutting it out, for this? Was this the danger from which he wanted to protect him? Or, most likely, was he just becoming paranoid?

He said himself that no, actually, he didn't want to have an answer to those questions. Certain type of things were better not to know, probably. And, by the way, that story, by now, belonged to the past. Nothing but the past.

**Author's Note:**

> I have translated this from the italian (it was my work, of course), I'm so sorry for the (eventually) mistakes


End file.
